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Nice Planet 2010

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Re: Nice Planet 2010

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/10/09/schools-confront-anti-gay-bullying-country/?test=latestnews

I think the "socials" have this one wrong. Assuming that there's real bullying going on, schools have a responsibility to try to put an end to it. And it ought to be possible for educated people to figure out a way to tell kids what's off limits without it devolving into a propaganda effort (for either side). I'm quite confident that mentioning the subject, won't turn a straight kid gay.

To me it's like the flawed core arguement in favor of "abstinence" sex education: the idea that if Miss Plimsol puts a condom on a cucumber, it's going to get the kids "thinking about sex," which presupposes (in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary) that they're not thinking about sex most (all?) the time already. Never mind how often they're already "doing it."

I quite understand that "family values" types would prefer the subject of homosexuality never be discussed (except to condemn it) and that gay rights activists have something entirely different in mind. As I say, it ought to be possible to thread that needle, especially if kids are dying.

And for what it's worth, I think it's inaccurate to describe what happened to Tyler Clemnti as "bullying." It was incredibly cruel, callous and a betrayal, but I wouldn't classify it as bullying. Even if his roommate knew in advance that he was planning to hook up with a dude (I don't believe that's been suggested or established, at least not the first time) that doesn't make it bullying, IMO. I'm not defending what happend to the young man, it's an outrage, and would have been even if his choice of partners was more orthodox. It's just the classification to which I object.
 
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Re: Nice Planet 2010

Old Pio said:
And for what it's worth, I think it's inaccurate to describe what happened to Tyler Clemnti as "bullying." It was incredibly cruel, callous and a betrayal, but I wouldn't classify it as bullying. Even if his roommate knew in advance that he was planning to hook up with a dude (I don't believe that's been suggested or established, at least not the first time) that doesn't make it bullying, IMO. I'm not defending what happend to the young man, it's an outrage, and would have been even if his choice of partners was more orthodox. It's just the classification to which I object.
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That issue became a thing because homosexuality still isn't social accepted... to be honest, it does give me the personal creeps. If he were videotaped with a woman some people would treat him as a hero... or he could have still been embarrassed if he's shy and modest.... you have a kid and his new peers, to whatever extent they were, toss him under the largest bus they could find for their own self-satisfaction. There isn't a snake pit deep enough for cases like that.

That being said, like most of these initiatives, it'll be heard by those with a sensitivity to the subject, not the people who need the lesson. Don't treat people like ****... videotaping somebody having sex isn't "a thing you did as a youthful indiscretion"... if we keep going down that road we're going to excuse just about every awful thing... these aren't kids, they are adults.

So all that being said, the homosexuality aspect was certainly an aggregating factor likely leading to the suicide... mostly as he feared as to what would happen to him by those in society and he probably felt he had nowhere else to turn. The start of college is a vulnerable time. The only thing you really can do is double down on telling people that resources are available... but you know... when your trust is destroyed I can't imagine you feel like you have a lot of options... a string of social mechanisms lead to a horrible result.

Bottom line... don't treat people like ****... and allowing people to treat others like **** is inexcusable... but you know what... nobody's going to confront these people... because these people tend to be alpha types... you only ridicule from a position of social/political/moral strength. That's why this stuff doesn't get taken on... who wants to be in the weak position.
 
Re: Nice Planet 2010

Patman said:
That issue became a thing because homosexuality still isn't social accepted... to be honest, it does give me the personal creeps. If he were videotaped with a woman some people would treat him as a hero... or he could have still been embarrassed if he's shy and modest.... you have a kid and his new peers, to whatever extent they were, toss him under the largest bus they could find for their own self-satisfaction. There isn't a snake pit deep enough for cases like that.

That being said, like most of these initiatives, it'll be heard by those with a sensitivity to the subject, not the people who need the lesson. Don't treat people like ****... videotaping somebody having sex isn't "a thing you did as a youthful indiscretion"... if we keep going down that road we're going to excuse just about every awful thing... these aren't kids, they are adults.

So all that being said, the homosexuality aspect was certainly an aggregating factor likely leading to the suicide... mostly as he feared as to what would happen to him by those in society and he probably felt he had nowhere else to turn. The start of college is a vulnerable time. The only thing you really can do is double down on telling people that resources are available... but you know... when your trust is destroyed I can't imagine you feel like you have a lot of options... a string of social mechanisms lead to a horrible result.

Bottom line... don't treat people like ****... and allowing people to treat others like **** is inexcusable... but you know what... nobody's going to confront these people... because these people tend to be alpha types... you only ridicule from a position of social/political/moral strength. That's why this stuff doesn't get taken on... who wants to be in the weak position.
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As you know, establishing causation (as opposed to correlation) in suicides is difficult. It surely seems likely being "outed" the way he was may have been the straw, etc. I'm guessing he had some other problems, too.

Although we can't know what was in the roommate's head, animus to gays doesn't seem to be first on his list. Recall his e-mail after the first incident, he referred to his roomie making it with a dude and said "yay." No pejoratives. As I said, it's still not clear whether the roommate knew beforehand that Tyler was hooking up with a guy. It may be the "gay" aspect was a bonus. These kids "sext" and video tape themselves and swap sexy videos, apparantly, all the time. And you've seen America's Funniest Videos, where they set up elaborate practical jokes on friends.

The point is, posting these videos, gay or straight, would be something that very immature, uncaring punks would do. And they wouldn't think they were necessarily doing anything wrong, just "punking" Tyler. Based on the skimpy facts we have, Tyler was trying to come to grips with his sexuality and wasn't "out." And let's not forget, what we do at 18 may not be what we'll be doing at 28-and that works both ways.

Yeah, I'm not necessarily thinking about feel good lectures from the schools. I'm thinking more along the lines of "If we catch you bullying other students, we'll hang you by your nards during homecoming." Something subtle but forceful enough to get the message across.

And yes, preaching to the converted is always a possibliity, whether its drugs or pre marital sex or whatever. The kids who come to the meetings are not the ones who need to be hearing the message. But the kinds of bullying we read about, physical, cruel stuff, goes beyond "sticks and stones" and becomes a matter requiring protection for the vicitims.

The trouble is, the "socials" and the "gay rights crowd" won't be able to turn down the volume, and that means some kids will be badly hurt.
 
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Re: Nice Planet 2010

I'm probably aping what Patman or Old Pio is saying but this jumped out at me in the article:

"We believe the bullying policy should put the emphasis on the wrong actions of the bullies and not the characteristics of the victims," said Chuck Darrell of the conservative Minnesota Family Council.

That's a wrongheaded, potentially dangerous approach, according to the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network -- which tries to improve the school climate for gay students nationwide.

"Policies have to name the problem in order to have an impact," said GLSEN's executive director, Eliza Byard. "Only the ones that name it see an improvement."
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This is the same rationale used by Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton to promote...I mean fight racism. It doesn't matter what the bully did. It only matters who the bully did it to. Just like it doesn't matter what that person did, it only matter what skin color the parties involved were.

Bullying is bullying. If someone is being bullied because of their sexual orientation, then really, it should be addressed.

If someone is getting teased because they did something stupid, then it really depends on what caused the stupid action.

Let's say this happened: Person A doinks Person B and videorecords it. That's stupid, but not all that bad. Person A then starts bragging about it, shows a few friends, and then posts it on the internet somewhere. Ok, THAT's really stupid. People, including those who don't like Person A, find out about it and start laughing or "bullying" him over it. Is the blame unilateral in this context? Would Person A be bullied had he not posted the video on the internet?

It sounds callous and cruel, but:

1. I don't care who you are, you will have friends and you will have people who don't like you.

2. When people do something stupid or embarrassing, other people will laugh and tease about it. After all, if you eliminated this tendency from Hollywood, Comedies would be dead. Will Farrell, Jon Carey, Adam Sandler, Jack Black, all of them would be out on the streets.

It's time to focus our efforts in two directions: 1. Social Responsibility (that would be your anti-bullying campaigns and character education) 2. Coping and Personal Responsibility - Manning up for doing something stupid and learning how to handle embarrassment just isn't taught or even expected of our youth.
 
Re: Nice Planet 2010

redwing77 said:
I'm probably aping what Patman or Old Pio is saying but this jumped out at me in the article:



This is the same rationale used by Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton to promote...I mean fight racism. It doesn't matter what the bully did. It only matters who the bully did it to. Just like it doesn't matter what that person did, it only matter what skin color the parties involved were.

Bullying is bullying. If someone is being bullied because of their sexual orientation, then really, it should be addressed.

If someone is getting teased because they did something stupid, then it really depends on what caused the stupid action.

Let's say this happened: Person A doinks Person B and videorecords it. That's stupid, but not all that bad. Person A then starts bragging about it, shows a few friends, and then posts it on the internet somewhere. Ok, THAT's really stupid. People, including those who don't like Person A, find out about it and start laughing or "bullying" him over it. Is the blame unilateral in this context? Would Person A be bullied had he not posted the video on the internet?

It sounds callous and cruel, but:

1. I don't care who you are, you will have friends and you will have people who don't like you.

2. When people do something stupid or embarrassing, other people will laugh and tease about it. After all, if you eliminated this tendency from Hollywood, Comedies would be dead. Will Farrell, Jon Carey, Adam Sandler, Jack Black, all of them would be out on the streets.

It's time to focus our efforts in two directions: 1. Social Responsibility (that would be your anti-bullying campaigns and character education) 2. Coping and Personal Responsibility - Manning up for doing something stupid and learning how to handle embarrassment just isn't taught or even expected of our youth.
Click to expand...

Nice shot at Sharpton--how can anybody look up to a person whose whole career is predicated on a vicious hoax? Every time I think of "The Rev" I'm reminded of what Godfrey Caimbridge said: "A black leader is a dude with a new suit and a hundred bucks in his pocket."

We are so polarized on these social issues, we sometimes forget that real people are really being hurt. When you read about one of the kids who suicided begging her mom not to make her go to school because of the ragging she got, you begin to conclude that "something should be done." The problem is what should that "something" be and an overly simplistic understanding of what causes a child to commit suicide. The temptation to over react is hard to resist, and the gay rights crowd will be right there, advocating exactly that.

Every time you have a school shooting you can count on the gun control crowd to dust off their favorite nostrums in response. Generally the laws they suggest wouldn't have prevented the tragedy at hand, they're just using the favorable breeze to push their agenda. We saw it after Columbine. How many laws did Klebold and Harris break, and what would be the liklihood that another law would have stopped them?

Identifying kids who are being bullied and offering them some strategies for dealing with it is appropriate. In my own case, the only physical confrontation I had in high school involved an older guy on the track team who just decided to get on my case. On the way out of the cafeteria one day I'd had enough and slammed his head off a locker. Even though a teacher caught me (naturally) I never had a problem with the dude again. Not every kid being bullied can do that and the schools can't really suggest that remedy anyway. But there are other things you can teach the kids to do, including ratting on the bullies.

High school kids, especially the ones who don't exactlly fit in, are desperate to find a group to belong to. I'm guessing the kids who wind up contemplating suicide just can't find a place to call home, a place where they're comfortable in their own skin and where they can be themselves. I'm also guessing there are plenty of gay kids who do just fine in high school and plenty of straight kids who are in serious trouble. Helping the "outsiders" find a place should also be part of the strategy, and not reserved just for gay kids.

However, the kinds of things I've read about cross way over the line of "normal" high school teasing and are firmly in the territory of requiring a response on the part of the schools. No feel good lectures, no posters, no singing of Kumbaya, no appealing to their better istincts. Something more direct, more draconian and more threatening.

The loss of a child is a blow from which many parents never recover. And to lose a child through suicide is beyond comprehension. If there are some common sense things schools can do to help avoid these tragedies, then let's get after it. And let's leave our agendas at home.
 
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Re: Nice Planet 2010

This issue kindof dovetails Old Pio.

Sometimes, bullying is a catchphrase used to defer fault. Criticism is being cited by some as a form of bullying.

The problem is, our kids aren't being taught how to handle criticism. They can't handle being wrong. They can't handle the repercussions for their mistakes in a real world setting.

I've witnessed kids call out another kid on the playground for bullying when the accusing kid did something stupid and all the other kid did was laugh. Heck, I've seen a fight in a 6th grade classroom where one girl was putting her rather copious hair back in a ponytail and the rubber band thingy she was using snapped. She said "OW!" and another girl started laughing and next thing you know, they were pummeling each other.

When the parents were contacted about the fight, the fight aggressor's mother (the one whose rubber band had snapped) said that the whole thing wouldn't have happened had the other girl hadn't been such a bully.

What's this world coming to?
 
Re: Nice Planet 2010

redwing77 said:
This issue kindof dovetails Old Pio.

Sometimes, bullying is a catchphrase used to defer fault. Criticism is being cited by some as a form of bullying.

The problem is, our kids aren't being taught how to handle criticism. They can't handle being wrong. They can't handle the repercussions for their mistakes in a real world setting.

I've witnessed kids call out another kid on the playground for bullying when the accusing kid did something stupid and all the other kid did was laugh. Heck, I've seen a fight in a 6th grade classroom where one girl was putting her rather copious hair back in a ponytail and the rubber band thingy she was using snapped. She said "OW!" and another girl started laughing and next thing you know, they were pummeling each other.

When the parents were contacted about the fight, the fight aggressor's mother (the one whose rubber band had snapped) said that the whole thing wouldn't have happened had the other girl hadn't been such a bully.

What's this world coming to?
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Look, there's a big difference between systemic bullying and other stuff. You cant always handle one off stuff between aggressive idiots and their parents... but bullying is as much ingrained attitude as much as anything else. Its a means of self-esteem building via showing dominance over others. Its a behavior, which may or may not be a learned behavior, but its a behavior nevertheless that I'm sure can be observed. These cases are clear and patterned... the issue is that often the parents won't particular care or see anything wrong... "the other kid needs to learn how to be tough" and other things.

Your half way between case is hardly an example of the stuff that exists.

Bottom line... society won't call out this behavior because its the behavior of the dominant and most of us want to co-exist with the dominant and not confront them... afterall, if you need to confront dominance then clearly you aren't dominant. The story of bullying is as much the story of society's use of dominance and our limits of tolerating it.

To me, the answers are to actually follow through on curtailing the actions of the dominant... dominance respects dominance... show them who is boss. Alternatively, we can't be teaching kids to be passive and to just take the hit. Either teach the kid to be dominant themselves or give them enough to deal with the issues... the dominant don't go away once you leave school. It just happens that often we can ignore it.
 
Re: Nice Planet 2010

I canceled my cable today to save money. Then I read this: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39678539/ns/local_news-fargo_nd/

These buttheads have a terrible channel selection and are overpriced. I just got Versus last year and the Big Ten Network and NFL last month. I don't get NHL, NBA, MLB Networks. I can't get the NHL, MLB, NBA or College Football Packages.

There is another cable company in the area, but Fargo for whatever reason, signed a contract with these jerks. So I and every other resident of Fargo can not switch to this cheaper company who provides more channels. But whatever, with this story I don't think I'll ever go back to CableOne.
 
Re: Nice Planet 2010

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/10/15/california-chief-says-whitman-whore/

Is it any wonder most Americans, including most women, think feminists are the biggest phonies on the plant? Sexual harrassment in the work place was a big friggin' deal when Clarence Thomas was accused of hitting on a Yale Law School grad. And we were treated to daily lectures about what a huge deal the "power differential" was in the work place.

But when the offender was the President of the United States and the lady was an intern, crickets.

Now Jerry Brown (pal of Jim Jones) or someone in his campaign calls Meg Whiteman a w***e for making a deal with the unions THAT HE WAS TRYING TO MAKE. The national head of NOW (to her credit) says there's never an appropriate time to use the word. But the California head of NOW, apparantly lobbying to be state moonbat in a Brown administration, says well yes, come to think of it, Meg Whitman IS a w***e. Charming.
 
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Re: Nice Planet 2010

Old Pio said:
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/aclu-suit-forces-high-school-admit-membe

Another First Amendment triumph, brought to you by the ACLU. "Church of body modification" my azz.
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Why be pizzed at the ACLU- the better question to ask is what the Fuzz is the mother thinking? Way to raise your child- teach them the rules are only OK if you like them?

Old Pio said:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/10/15/california-chief-says-whitman-whore/

Is it any wonder most Americans, including most women, think feminists are the biggest phonies on the plant? Sexual harrassment in the work place was a big friggin' deal when Clarence Thomas was accused of hitting on a Yale Law School grad. And we were treated to daily lectures about what a huge deal the "power differential" was in the work place.

But when the offender was the President of the United States and the lady was an intern, crickets.

Now Jerry Brown (pal of Jim Jones) or someone in his campaign calls Meg Whiteman a w***e for making a deal with the unions THAT HE WAS TRYING TO MAKE. The national head of NOW (to her credit) says there's never an appropriate time to use the word. But the California head of NOW, apparantly lobbying to be state moonbat in a Brown administration, says well yes, come to think of it, Meg Whitman IS a w***e. Charming.
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I wonder if anyone actually stops to look at the issues? Nah... Thank goodness I don't have to vote for either of those bozos.
 
Re: Nice Planet 2010

SOP for the ACLU is to have lefty lawyers filing frivolous suits (like representing the Church of Body Modification) against school districts that can't afford to spend tens of thousands of dollars in court defending them. The result is a decision which evidently places the so-called Church of Body Modification on the same list, with the same perquisites, as any Christian denomination. Maybe you don't have a problem with extremists who game the system in this way, but I do.

I'm not sure what you're referring to when you call Meg Whitman a "bozo." She's been a hugely successful business person, unlike Jerry Brown, who has spent his entire life looking for the next public sinecure to occupy. In this particular dustup, Whitman is the victim, not the perpetrator. Whatever you may think of the use of the word w***e to describe her, Whitman had nothing to do with it.
 
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Re: Nice Planet 2010

At what point does someone sacrifice a live chicken in school and claim it's part of their religion?
 
Re: Nice Planet 2010

Whenever some punk wants to express his/her "individuality" and the local pro bono ACLU lawyers have some time on their hands.
 
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